Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1887-06-10
scALLoP FISHING.
How One of the Rare Delicacies. Of the
Eastern Markets Is Obtained.

How One of the Rare Delicacies. Of the |
Eastern Markets L. Obtained.
Though it had long previusly been
enioyed by the shore towns in New
England, the introduction OF the seal
lop as an edible into the New York
markets is as recent as 1858 or '59.
Now the annual product of the fishery,
which is res tricted in area and subject
to much variation, amounts to some
thing like $4,000 gallons in all, worth
from twenty-five to thirty thousand
dollars at first cost; and New York re-
ceives and dispenses about three
fourths.
The species of scallop in question is
Pecten Irrddians, which is common in
suitable places all along our coast.
Besides this there are half-a-dozen
other varieties, living at more or less
depths in the Western Atlantic, one of
which, the great Pecten tenuicostatas OF
the coast of Maine and the Bay of
Fundy, was formerly highly valued by
the people of that region, but now is
too scarce to appear on the tables of
even "the rich" except at rare inter-
walls.
Scallops are caught by hand-dredg-
ing from small sail boats. The dredges
are about thirty inches in width, have
scraper blade upon the bottom, and in
favorable weather several may be
thrown over from each boat. In shoal
water an iron-framed dip net is some
times used on calm days. 1t is pretty
hard work, and entails exposure to very
severe weather.
The only edible part of the scallop is
the squarish mass of muscle the
adductor) which holds the shells
together, and this part is skillfully cut
out by "openers," who have their
houses at the landing places where the
dredgers take their cargoes to be sold.
1t is the buyer, not the dredger, who
"OPENS" or "cuts out" the meat and
prepares it for market. In some places
men alone are employed in this work,
at others women and girls for the most
part, and they will earn from eighty
cents to 1925 day. The work is per-
formed with great dexterity. The
motions of an expert opener are but
three after the scallop is in hand. The
bivalve is taken in the left hand, palm
up, with the hinges of the scallop
towards the openers body. The knife
"a simple piece of steel ground sharp,
and with one end stuck in wooden
handles inserted in the opening of
| ~ I'LL
upper ''eye" is severed through by this
movement. A tlirt at the same moment
throws off the upper shell. The second
motion cuts the lower fastenings of the
eye to the upper shell and takes the
soft and useless rim off. The last
motion pitches the shell into one barrel
and the soft and Shiny rim into another.
while the eye is thrown into
basin of yellow stoneware
holding gallon. They are then
poured from the basin into a large
colander, thoroughly washed, placed
in clean boxes and shipped to New
York and Brooklyn. AS little. fresh
water or ice is placed in contact with
the "meats" as possible, as it is thought
detrimental to their tirmness and flavor.
AS this is altogether winter operation,
the help of ice in transportation is not
usually needed.
There is. or ought to be, no waste in
the scallop fishery On Long Island
the refuse is taken by the farmers as
manure. The sea-faring agriculturists
have always been accustomed to re-
plenish their half-exhausted lands with
the scrapings of the beach, and with
the menhaden and other sene-fish which
could be caught plentifully enough fol-
the purpose in the ofing-much to the
disgust of every stranger who found
himself to leeward of their fields. This
demand failing, there is always sale for
the refuse to the regular fertilizer-fac-
tories scattered along the shore.
The shells are preferred above all
others by the oyster-planters as
"stools" or "cultch" to spread upon
their deep-water planting beds as OBJ
jects upon which the oyster-spawn may
set and grow. This wise preference
is due to the fragility of the scallop-
shell, permitting it to break into
pieces under the strain of growing
cluster of oysters, each one of which
will be benefited by the separation,
which frees it from the crowding of its
fellows and gives it room to expand by
itself into comely and valuable rotun-
dity, instead of remaining strap
shaped distorted member of coales-
cent group. All their shells, therefore,
can easily be sold by the openers to
!, the oystermen at from three to five
cents bushel.-Er7aest HngersoU, in
american Naturalist.
Excavations in Papoo